


Unbreakable

by Germinal



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Era, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29071131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Germinal/pseuds/Germinal
Summary: Courfeyrac and Combeferre await Enjolras' return from a more personal mission than usual.
Relationships: Combeferre & Courfeyrac & Enjolras (Les Misérables), Courfeyrac/Enjolras (Les Misérables)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Unbreakable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ancslove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancslove/gifts).



By this point in the evening Courfeyrac was three glasses of wine down, none of which had so far been of much assistance. He now leaned forward and took up his fourth. 

“We should go out and look for him, don’t you think? Surely it must be past the hour he said he’d –”

“It’s barely ten, Courfeyrac,” Combeferre said gently. The hand he’d raised momentarily in reassurance settled again on the arm of his chair.

As usual, his friend’s lack of concern on the surface didn’t fool Courfeyrac. He watched Combeferre’s fingers tap against the chair’s dark wood in quiet agitation for a while before he tried again. 

“You know, if the plan now is simply to offer ourselves up to all comers when the occasion calls for it, then he might at least have asked for volunteers before throwing himself into the frontline. You know I’d have been happy to – ” 

Combeferre looked across at him and held his gaze. “Yes of course you would. But that wasn’t what we needed, was it? You were there, Courfeyrac. There are times when your willingness to accommodate is a welcome weapon in our arsenal, but – forgive me – sometimes a more subtle operation is required. And that particular guardsman... he wasn’t ready to give up anything too helpful, there in the Musain, in the middle of us all, but you saw the way he looked at him?”

“Of course I did.” Courfeyrac tried to keep the bitterness from his voice. It had been, of course, his own recklessly intrepid action that had set all this in motion. It was he who was responsible for having introduced Enjolras to a man who might well have some useful information, but who had spent their subsequent discussion looking at his friend with the hungry gaze of someone, done with the appetisers, who was now clearly intent on what main course Les Amis might have to offer him.

He took another mouthful of wine. “It was a bad idea to let them leave together. Bahorel had the right approach, you know – learn what’s useful, let the fellow think he’s getting what he wants, beckon him into the nearest alleyway, then take a cosh out of your trousers instead of what he’s expecting, and – ”

Combeferre gave him a wry smile. “Let us hope we’re worrying over nothing. We may be, you know – they may be doing nothing more than debating the issues at length. We both know Enjolras excels at that.” 

Courfeyrac frowned, and fell into a tense silence. It was increasingly difficult not to think about his knowledge of what else their friend excelled at, the way he had been privileged to see Enjolras, before now, give way to unexpected passion. 

There had been only two occasions, when more than three shared bottles of wine, along with countless hours of talking, had seen the two of them collapse into each other’s arms, as though intent on consummating their commitment to each other and to their goals in deed as well as in word. Once in the upper room of the Musain when their debates had carried them into the evening long past closing-time, and once, in the early hours of a morning after a night spent in exhilarated evasion of the authorities, on the bed in this very room. On both occasions, their lips against each other’s, and the touch of their gradually bared skin, had been a promise of a better future, warm and comforting, and somehow keeping at bay the frequently harsh, uncomprehending world.

Courfeyrac was now uncomfortably, acutely aware that this would surely have been Enjolras’ first experience of this kind of intimacy. What they had shared together couldn’t be anything of the kind they’d left him to experience tonight. He was unsure whether Enjolras could translate the actions and emotions that they’d shared into cold, transactional exchanges with another, with a man they barely knew and who could hardly be trusted with anything dear to them, least of all with Enjolras. His treacherous imagination offered him visions of Enjolras in unwanted flashes of obscenity: his hands clasped tight around some stranger’s bedposts, his marble skin bared to the clutch and the caress of unknown hands, his lips stretched wide around a prick – 

He drained his glass, and tried to find a certain comfort in the thought that Combeferre was at least being spared this insightful aspect of their shared anxiety. 

As they had settled into silence, so the silence of the building settled around them, so that the sudden scrape of the front door being pulled open came as a shock. They looked apprehensively at one another as they listened to the familiarly brisk and purposeful footsteps on the stairs. Courfeyrac leant forward to again fill up his glass, unsure if his plan was to offer it to Enjolras or, by gulping it all at once, to drown his own nerves. 

To look at him, slipping in through the apartment’s door as he had done so many times before, Enjolras was no different from when they had left him earlier that night: his head held high, his golden hair spilling over his collar and his top-coat pulled tight against the chill outside. It was only when he crossed the room and shrugged his coat from his shoulders with some difficulty, casting it into a corner of the room, that Courfeyrac saw confirmed the signs of what the past few hours had cost him. 

Combeferre, unburdened by the drink that weighed Courfeyrac down, was quicker to reach him, laying a supportive hand across Enjolras’ shoulders and ushering him over to the bed. By the time Courfeyrac joined them they’d exchanged some whispered words and Enjolras was smiling grimly up at them, his customary coolness back in place, his eyes like ice.

“At any rate, the evening may be counted as a success, since I got what I wanted – as did he.”

The words seemed to exhaust him, and when Courfeyrac pressed a glass of wine into his hand he gazed at it blankly for a moment, and then raised it to his lips and threw it back like it was water. The action exposed the line of his throat, and Courfeyrac’s eyes fixed on the ring of bruises barely hidden by his loosened cravat and then, when the glass was lowered, on his reddened and split lips.

Combeferre reached for the empty glass, and when he took it he gripped it with knuckles so white that for a second Courfeyrac feared it would shatter in his hand. Then he set it down gently on the floor, and pressed a kiss of equal softness to the back of Enjolras’ hand as he settled on the bed next to him.

“We’ll do without this kind of information,” he said, glancing deep into Enjolras’ eyes, “if this is the kind of price that’s asked.”

A breath of laughter, more grateful than dismissive, passed their friend’s bruised lips. “We’ll see.” 

Though neither of them pushed the matter further, Courfeyrac could already see Enjolras calculating that the cost to him was little compared to the profit to their cause. Despite himself, he could anticipate Enjolras’ point of view, and he could feel himself unsure about how far he disagreed. 

When Enjolras turned a dazed-looking gaze to him, Courfeyrac remained silent other than a smile, and sank down to join them on the threadbare sheets. There would be time enough later to dispute, philosophise and strategize over this kind of decision. For now, he concentrated on brushing slow circles with his thumb against the inside of Enjolras’ wrist, watching his friend’s eyelids grow heavy and the tense set of his shoulders gradually soften with sleep. 

He looked over at Combeferre, who looked near sleep himself, and offered him his hand. The two of them settled on their sides with their fingers interlaced across Enjolras’ chest, the three of them joined like the links of an unbreakable chain.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Chocolate Box Round 6 for ancslove - I hope you like it!


End file.
